Our Eye on Tenders, Susanne Woodman of BRE, brings to our attention two from UK.Gov’s Contracts Finder and TED, with full information at the links:

Telemedicine Solution for Stroke Services from Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust. Nottingham City Hospital requires an immediate replacement for a stroke Telecart which deals with out of hours (OOH) stroke emergencies. This system allows the consultants to remotely interact with patients and staff on the stroke unit. The patient is seen in real time video and audio. Future plans, not in this contract, are for a replacement system in multiple locations. Contact is Niall Fowler of the NUH NHS Trust. Closing 26 May.

NHS National Services Scotland Remote Health and Care Monitoring and Communication System. The procurement is intended to support the delivery of home/mobile health monitoring and video conferencing enhanced care. At a later date, this will expand to incorporate future digital telecare or wellbeing solutions. A registration of interest is required for more information, available at the Public Contracts Scotland website. Value is £ 2 million. Note: this listing is a Prior Information Notice with estimated publication 21 June. These are generally released for high-value contracts with usually a compressed application period since information has been previously published.

Our definitions

Telehealth and Telecare Aware posts pointers to a broad range of news items. Authors of those items often use terms 'telecare' and telehealth' in inventive and idiosyncratic ways. Telecare Aware's editors can generally live with that variation. However, when we use these terms we usually mean:

• Telecare: from simple personal alarms (AKA pendant/panic/medical/social alarms, PERS, and so on) through to smart homes that focus on alerts for risk including, for example: falls; smoke; changes in daily activity patterns and 'wandering'. Telecare may also be used to confirm that someone is safe and to prompt them to take medication. The alert generates an appropriate response to the situation allowing someone to live more independently and confidently in their own home for longer.

• Telehealth: as in remote vital signs monitoring. Vital signs of patients with long term conditions are measured daily by devices at home and the data sent to a monitoring centre for response by a nurse or doctor if they fall outside predetermined norms. Telehealth has been shown to replace routine trips for check-ups; to speed interventions when health deteriorates, and to reduce stress by educating patients about their condition.

Telecare Aware's editors concentrate on what we perceive to be significant events and technological and other developments in telecare and telehealth. We make no apology for being independent and opinionated or for trying to be interesting rather than comprehensive.